ISLAMABAD:Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sikandar Sultan Raja on Wednesday said that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was committed to provide equal opportunities to every segment of the society and trying to make the electoral process more inclusive as per Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan.
He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the fourth phase of the joint campaign for women’s National Identity Card (NIC) and voters’ registration of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) which was held here at ECP Secretariat.
He said that today’s ceremony is proof that the ECP was working very hard to enhance the political empowerment of women.
He appreciated the role of NADRA and ECP’s development partners, civil society and media for assisting the ECP in its efforts to increase female NIC and voter registration and to mitigate the gender gap in electoral rolls.
Secretary ECP, Dr Akhter Nazir said that following its strategic plan, the ECP was trying to lessen the gender gap in the electoral rolls.
ADG Gender Affairs, Ms. Nighat Siddique in her briefing said that since the launch of the ECP-NADRA Joint campaign on female NIC and voter registration in 2017 and as a result of three phases of the said campaign, female NIC and voter registration increased manifold.
In comparison to the electoral rolls published in October 2020, the gender gap had further gone down from 12.41 million to 12.37 percent in the electoral rolls published in April 2021.
The fourth phase of the campaign was the continuation of ECP’s efforts to mitigate the gender gap in electoral rolls, she added.
Chairperson NADRA, Tariq Malik appreciated the efforts of the ECP for women NIC and voter registration and assured that NADRA would keep providing its assistance to the ECP in this regard.
He said that NADRA was targeting those 80 districts where the gender gap in NIC and voter lists was 10 percent or more. NADRA would soon be establishing 66 Registration Centers at the Tehsil level, moreover, NADRA had marked Friday as ‘Women Registration Day’, he added.
In the ceremony, CEC handed over NICs to three women who got registered for the very first time with NADRA. I
n the end, CEC also inspected the Mobile Registration Van (MRV) of NADRA in the premises of the ECP which had all female staff.
The event was attended amongst others by the Members Election Commission of Pakistan, Chairperson NADRA, Secretary ECP, Officials of ECP, NADRA, and development partners of the ECP.